A new fundraising arm for accused Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse is raising questions about how his previous legal team spent hundreds of thousands in donations, as it battles PayPal and other platforms that are shutting down its new accounts.
FreeKyleUSA has fired Twitter salvos at Rittenhouse’s former lawyers—California litigator John Pierce and pro-Trump attorney Lin Wood—for weeks, demanding an accounting of funds from Wood’s FightBack Foundation. (Pierce resigned from FightBack in September amid scrutiny over his embattled law firm, which was millions in debt. Lin himself is facing a lawsuit from former partners, who accuse him of failing to pay them fees and of “erratic, abusive, and unprofessional behavior.” In response, Lin released a statement calling the suit a “shakedown effort” that would force him to fork over “an unreasonable portion” of his earned fee.)
According to a representative of FreeKyleUSA, Fightback is no longer authorized to collect funds on Rittenhouse’s behalf and has failed to provide a detailed accounting to Rittenhouse’s family for the $2.1 million in donations it raised through the end of November.
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Fightback, for its part, denies anything about its accounting is amiss. Lawson Pedigo, a Dallas-based attorney and Fightback co-founder, said much of Fightback’s donations earmarked for Rittenhouse went to the teenager’s $2 million bail payment, and $600,000 of Fightback’s own general funds went toward legal fees.
Pedigo said he’s provided an overview of the accounting to Rittenhouse’s legal team. “It’s a positive situation,” Pedigo told The Daily Beast. “That’s why I’m surprised there would be something to suggest otherwise.”
For his part, Wood said the Rittenhouse family wanted Pierce to take over all future fundraising and for Fightback to stop its efforts as of Nov. 28. “We promptly did so and publicly stated the next day that future fundraising efforts would be undertaken by John and not #FightBack. No donations were thereafter sought or received by the foundation related to Kyle or his case. #FightBack did a great job in helping Kyle and the foundation still supports him but not in a fundraising capacity,” Wood said in an email.
Rittenhouse made national headlines after he fatally shot two people and injured a third during civil unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last August. Demonstrators had gathered to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake, who was paralyzed after a Kenosha cop fired seven bullets into him at close range.
The 18-year-old from Illinois—who’s become a cause célèbre among right-wing activists—has pleaded not guilty to charges including first-degree intentional homicide, and his lawyers say he acted in self-defense.
The FreeKyleUSA account, launched in December, has posted photos of Rittenhouse, his mother, Wendy, and his dog, and says it set up an independent trust for the defense fund. But the account is also busy tussling with Pierce and Fightback in what appears to be a feud between current and former advocates for Rittenhouse.
On Wednesday, FreeKyleUSA tweeted: “We’re finally catching our breath after the recent de-platforming. We plan to respond to your email messages over the next couple of days. We will do our best to address the litany of concerns about Fightback directly.”
The mysterious handle has issued a flurry of tweets questioning Fightback, Pierce and Wood about their accounting of their fundraising.
“Lin controlled funds donated through Fightback,” the account claimed on Feb. 23. “John controlled funds donated for family living expenses and version 1 of FreeKyleUSA. Neither has produced an accounting record when asked and the balances have yet to be transferred. So yea. I’m going to call it like it is.”
On Feb. 4, the FreeKyleUSA account added: “Following the recommendation of attorney’s [sic] and accountants everywhere, we’ve been offline for a few weeks to setup an independent irrevocable trust strictly for the benefit of Kyle. John Pierce opposed that idea. It is clear that by doing so, we made the right decision.”
The same day, the account posted, “Kyle, his family, and freekyleusa wish John Pierce the very best and thank him for his work over the past five months.”
A representative of FreeKyleUSA told The Daily Beast that everything it has thus far raised goes to past-due bills for Rittenhouse’s new defense lawyer, Mark Richards, as well as investigators and experts. “We are scraping by right now,” the person said.
“It’s a big deal that they have not been provided an accounting at all,” the representative added. “Wendy has no idea what was raised, from what sources, she has no idea who was paid what from the defense. All she knows really is upwards of a half-million dollars was spent on a failed extradition fight that should have never been started.”
Rittenhouse’s new civil lawyer, conservative tax attorney Robert Barnes, has also taken public swipes at Wood and Pierce. In December, Barnes responded to Wood’s public comments that all donations Fightback collected for Rittenhouse specifically would go “exclusively for his criminal defense."
“Wood lied,” Barnes wrote, adding. “Wood didn’t do that.”
In September, Barnes posted: “Wood won't give the $ to Rittenhouse's family, and Pierce needs the $ to feed his many creditors for all his debts.”
Barnes and Pierce didn’t return messages left by The Daily Beast.
In response to Barnes’ claims, Wood said, “Looking at the dates of these tweets, I suspect Robert was either uninformed or misinformed at the time he posted them.” He added that he believes “Robert now knows that there has been no mishandling of funds by #FightBack or any of its principals.”
Last month, Pierce suggested the latest fundraising effort via FreeKyleUSA wasn’t straightforward about its intentions.
“Anyone wondering who is running @freekyleusa and what his history and his agenda is?” Pierce tweeted Feb. 17. “I heard there is an 8% handling fee. I wonder where that goes. I wonder if there is a history between him, Lin Wood and @barnes_law? Perhaps they also talk with someone I had to fire? #preds.”
Pierce added, “Perhaps Mr. @freekyleusa should focus less on stealing and posting illegally wiretapped phone calls, and more on disclosing why he hates Lin Wood so much. It actually seems a bit personal, obsessive and a bit creepy. But hey that’s just me. What do I know about the situation???”
The representative for FreeKyleUSA responded to these claims in a message to The Daily Beast: “First, I don’t know what illegally wiretapped means. Second, I don’t know who we would ‘steal’ the audio file from. The audio file was provided by… how does Lin say it... a credible whistleblower.”
In the meantime, PayPal and Stripe, an online payment processing platform, have discontinued service to accounts associated with Rittenhouse’s fundraising. It's not entirely clear whether PayPal and Stripe discontinued services to Rittenhouse’s team in light of the platforms’ promises to cut ties with individuals or groups promoting violence.
A spokesperson for PayPal would only say the company has a long-standing policy to allow fundraising for legal defense purposes, so long as the account holder has a pending trial or appeal in process. The FreeKyleUSA website indicates their fundraiser would go toward “Kyle’s defense and other case related expenses.”
Printify, an online store, also terminated FreeKyleUSA’s account in December for violating company policy that prohibits content condoning violence, the Kenosha News reported.
GiveSendGo, a Christian crowdfunding site, raised roughly $585,000 for Rittenhouse and transferred about $571,000 to Lin and Fightback for defense costs including bond.
As NBC reported in January, PayPal discontinued providing payment tools to GiveSendGo after it raised money for Capitol rioters. Jacob Wells, founder and CFO of GiveSendGo, told The Daily Beast in an email: “We are in the process of completing and implementing new payment solutions for our platform.”
“We hold dear the tenets that people are Presumed Innocent until Proven guilty in a court of law, and that everyone ought to be afforded Due Process,” Wells said.
